Aust, talks disappoint Mr Muldoon

Press, 25 June 1983, Page 1

Aust, talks disappoint Mr Muldoon

NZPA staff correspondent Canberra The Australian Treasurer, Mr Paul Keating, managed to ruin the day for the Prime Minister,' Mr Muldoon, with his stand on New Zealand investment in Australia. Mr Muldocn said last evening that he was verydisappointed with his talks with Mr Keating. “He wasn’t prepared to consider any changes in Australian policy,” said Mr Muldoon. The foreign investment question and the issue of the right of entry of the National Bank were the main items in Mr Muldoon’s talks, and he indicated that Mr Keating gave him no joy on the latter issue either. Mr Muldoon said the freeze on Australian investment in New Zealand would not now be lifted immediately, and his Government would have to consider where it went from there. “What I’m talking about is harmonising the policies,

and there are two ways of doing that — they can come downwards or they can go up,” he said. “Now we have just got to have a look at this matter," he said. Mr Keating said earlier that Mr Muldoon now had a clearer understanding of the matter, but Mr Muldoon retorted last night that he had not been told anything he had not known before. On the question of the National Bank, Mr Muldoon said the Australian Government had had a committee looking into letting foreign banks into the country. “Now they have got a committee looking into the report of the committee, and then they will consider the question of foreign banking,” said Mr Muldoon. He said he was not particularly happy with that because the National Bank did not want to get into Australia to begin banking activities and open branches. It wanted to open

one or two branches to look after its customers. Mr Muldoon hinted that Australia could be singled out for special “treatment” under New Zealand’s foreign investment regulations, and the Australians could expect the same medicine they were giving New Zealand' “This is the trans-Tasman thing, you see — if you’ve got C.E.R. in a bilateral context, I think you have got to have the same rules in either direction," Mr Muldoon said. “Mr Keating said he was not prepared to change his regulations.” Mr Keating said earlier that Australia would have treaty problems with other countries if he gave special preference to New Zealand, citing a trade agreement with Japan. But Mr Muldoon pointed out that C.E.R. itself was discriminating in New Zealand's favour on trade.

“The mere fact of C.E.R. agreements is discriminating in favour of New Zealand over a whole range of items, and all that we’re asking him to do is extend into the finance sector what we already have in the trade sector,” he said. Mr Muldoon agreed that foreign Investment was not covered by the trade treaty, but with C.E.R. now running, it was. the time to consider the matter, he said. But with the exception of Mr Keating, Mr Muldoon said his talks with the other Australian Ministers were “first class.” “The discussions we had with Mr Bowen on trade issues and industrial issues were extremely good,” he said. “They’ve got some problems and we’ve got some problems that need to be met, and I think we have made a lot of progress. “My talks this morning (with Mr Hawke and other Cabinet Ministers) were extremely good.”

Earlier Mr Keating explained that since 1976 there had been 394 investment proposals involving New Zealand interests and only five had been rejected. He said that since the Labour Government had come to power there had been 11 New Zealand proposals and two had been rejected. He said he thought that Australia’s foreign investment policy was adequate to deal with the C.E.R. situation. Mr Keating said he had not specifically asked Mr Muldoon to lift his freeze on Australian investment, but “certainly I think he has a better understanding of the track record of Australia in practical terms.” “No problem exists between us in terms of New Zealand access to Australia,” he said. Earlier, Mr Muldoon described as “satisfactory” his first round of talks with Mr Hawke and his Ministers, covering a wide range of non-economic issues ranging from the Australian initiative in Kampuchea to

nuclear testing and dumping in the Pacific. The question of Tasman travel was dealt with quickly and Mr Muldoon said he was happy that the Australian Government was not going to interfere with it. Passports, he said, would be left for some future government to deal with. On the nuclear issue, Mr Muldoon said New Zealand would examine Mr Hawke’s proposals in detail. “We tried to explore the extent to which the Australian proposals take our policy further,” he said. “One obvious area is the prohibition of dumping of nuclear waste in the South Pacific.” Mr Muldoon said there was “not very much” in Mr Hawke’s proposals to change the present situatlOOh A.N.Z.U.S., Mr Muldoon said Mr Hawke felt that the 30-year-old treaty needed to be looked at again, without changing issues of substance. Mr Muldoon said he also talked with the Labour

leader about his bid for a new world monetary system, and left him information to consider. The question of support for the ailing Pacific forum line was also raised by Mr Muldoon, who said the Australians had appeared to have suspicions that it was a plot to extend New Zealand trade in the Pacific. He described his Australian opposite number as a “very interesting and attractive personality.” Meanwhile Mr Muldoon surprised the Australian news media with his news that the French President, Mr Francois Mitterrand, had given him a deadline for the end to nuclear testing in the Pacific. He said he had given the date to Mr Hawke during their private talks. The news of a date for the end of testing came as a surprise to the Australians, although Mr Muldoon has previously revealed that the French President had told him that tests would end sometime in the future. No actual date has been released to the public by the

Prime Minister, beyond saying that it was “not too far out in front of us.” However, an Australian Government spokesman later denied an imminent end to the nuclear testing. He said that according to what the French had told Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Bill Hayden, when he was in Paris last month, and to statements from French emissary, Mr Regis Debray, this month, the Australians understood that the French had no plans to stop testing soon.